No longer sleepless in Seattle

The last season of ABC’s popular reality show “The Bachelorette” ended with heartbreak for handsome Seattle bachelor Jason Mesnick, 32. Bachelorette DeAnna Pappas eliminated 23 suitors before the final show, in which she had to choose between Mesnick and Jesse Csincsak, a pro snowboarder. She picked Csincsak.

But Mesnick, a personable, divorced single dad of a 3-year-old son, was a fan favorite, so ABC has brought him back as the titular character on the new season of “The Bachelor,” which began Jan. 5 and will be shown Mondays at 8 p.m. Mesnick has already kind of let the cat out of the bag: He told People magazine that the season will end with him happily engaged. But we don’t know to which bachelorette.

The estate-planning executive told the Cleveland Jewish News that he had a bar mitzvah and that while he isn’t very religious, he celebrates Jewish holidays with his family. Religion, Mesnick said, came up briefly in “The Bachelorette” when Pappas, who is Greek Orthodox, met his parents and asked a few questions about Judaism and religion.

By the way, don’t hold your breath waiting for Mesnick’s nupitals — only one couple in the history of the “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” series has actually wed. Last November, DePappas got cold feet and broke her engagement to Csincsak.

Movie news

“Bride Wars,” opening Friday, Jan. 9, stars Kate Hudson, 29, and Anne Hathaway as lifelong friends who get engaged around the same time. Everything is going great until the wedding planner (Candice Bergen) slips up and schedules their weddings for the same time, at the same hotel. Neither bride wants to reschedule. Sounds like a good “date” movie. Bryan Greenberg, 30, plays Hudson’s fiancé. Hudson, the daughter of Goldie Hawn, identifies as Jewish, although she has only one Jewish grandparent (Goldie’s mother).

Also opening Jan. 9 is “The Unborn,” directed and written by David S. Goyer, 43. Goyer had a huge hit last year as the co-writer of “The Dark Knight.” “The Unborn” is a horror-fantasy thriller somewhat based on the Jewish folklore figure of the dybbuk, a possessing spirit often believed to be the spirit of a dead person. As the film opens, a young woman (Odette Yustman) feels that a spirit is trying to take control of her. We learn that the spirit is that of a young boy who died in the Holocaust and was a relative of the woman. Gary Oldman co-stars as a scholarly, “modern” rabbi who tries to exorcise the dybbuk.

Goyer recently told a Web site: “I knew about dybbuks ever since I was a kid. I’m half Jewish, I went to Hebrew school and so when I was growing up, like anybody, I was into monsters and I thought about it and was like, ‘Are there any Jewish monsters?’ So there’s like the dybbuk and the golem and that’s pretty much it.”

Global Hebrews

The Golden Globes are a reasonable predictor of Oscar nominations, and the relaxed Globes award ceremony is usually more fun than the stuffy Oscars. This year it airs on NBC at 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 11.

Jewish actors/actresses up for a Globe include Sean Penn, best actor in a film drama for “Milk”; James Franco, best actor in a film comedy for “Pineapple Express”; Kyra Sedgwick, best actress in a TV drama for “The Closer”; Debra Messing, best actress in a TV comedy for “The Starter Wife”; and David Duchovny, best actor in a TV comedy for “Californication.”

Also worth noting: “Happy-Go-Lucky,” written and directed by Mike Leigh, a British landsman, is nominated for best film comedy. (English Jewish actress Alexis Zegerman, in her first big role, plays the roommate of the main character, Poppy.) Competing in the same category is Woody Allen‘s comedy “Vicky Christina Barcelona.” Brit director Sam Mendes, whose mother is Jewish, is up for best director for “Revolutionary Road.”